MacBook Pro with Retina and Haswell Benchmarks Appear

We take benchmarks with a grain of salt around here at TechnoBuffalo, mainly because we're more interested in real-world use versus a number that means very little to most consumers. Still, when a new processor or some other technology is added to any consumer tech product, early benchmarks can give you a bit of a sense of some speed improvements. After all, with most benchmarks, higher numbers seem to suggest better performance.

Now a few benchmarks have leaked for the new MacBook Pro with Retina display laptops from Apple, which include the new Intel Haswell processors. The new chips should offer better performance and longer battery life in daily use, but we can also see the new scores are higher than earlier models. MacRumors notes that some of the benchmarks look faked, as they often easily are, but some also line up with expectations.

The new Core i7 2.3GHz and Core i7 2.6GHz 15-inch MacBook Pro models scored 11,771 and 12,813 respectively in Geekbench 3, according to benchmarks published on the Primate Labs Geekbench 3 site. Meanwhile, the Core i5 2.4GHz, Core i5 2.5GHz and Core i5 2.8Ghz 13-inch MacBook Pro models scored 4,348, 5,954 and 6,189, respectively. Those seem legitimate since that's the kind of bump we expect from the differences in processor speeds, and they are about 4-10 percent better than last year's models, MacRumors notes.

For us, though, the real draw to the new MacBook Pro with Retina display is the thinner form factor and longer battery life, which should be really appealing aspects for most consumers. Since the benchmarks can be faked, we're leaving this as a rumor for now. The new models started shipping as of yesterday, so we should have real scores soon.